Last night I had such a lovely dream. I was with a new man whose eyes were grey and silver. We were walking through a field of impossible beauty, with golden flowers so tall they grew above our heads. I had to stand on tip-toe to see the gold – their stems were all white and silver. The path we were on had a double ridge, wide tracks, with other golden flowers growing low to the ground between them. I was troubled because I couldn't remember their name. I stood on tip-toe again to look at the spread of gold in front of us, and whispered to the man, ‘It's like the field of the cloth of gold’, but I don't think he heard me, and I didn't think he'd understand anyway. But as I slipped my gloved hand into his, I felt in a state of grace. I woke in tears at the sense of loss.
And they must be the footsteps of our own ancestors who made the whole landscape by hand and left their handprints on everything and trod every foot of it, and the present shapes are their footprints, those ancestors whose names were on the stones in the churchyard and many whose names weren't. And the tales of them and of people living I would take with me, and the songs in my mind, as if everything I thought and felt had to be set in words and music – everything that was true in me.